Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The following is the text of Congressman Ron Paul's letter of resignation, sent in 1984 to Frank Fahrenkopf, then chairman of the Republican National Committee.
As a lifelong Republican, it saddens me to have to write this letter. My parents believed in the Republican Party and its free enterprise philosophy, and that's the way I was brought up. At age 21, in 1956, I cast my first vote for Ike and the entire Republican slate.
Because of frustration with the direction in which the country was going, I became a political activist and ran for the U.S. Congress in 1974. Even with Watergate, my loyalty, optimism, and hope for the future were tied to the Republican Party and its message of free enterprise, limited government, and balanced budgets.
Eventually I was elected to the U.S. Congress four times as a Republican. This permitted me a first-hand look at the interworkings of the U.S. Congress, seeing both the benefits and partisan frustrations that guide its shaky proceedings. I found that although representative government still exists, special interest control of the legislative process clearly presents a danger to our constitutional system of government.
In 1976 I was impressed with Ronald Reagan's program and was one of the four members of Congress who endorsed his candidacy. In 1980, unlike other Republican office holders in Texas, I again supported our President in his efforts.
Since 1981, however, I have gradually and steadily grown weary of the Republican Party's efforts to reduce the size of the federal government. Since then Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party have given us skyrocketing deficits, and astoundingly a doubled national debt. How is it that the party of balanced budgets, with control of the White House and Senate, accumulated red ink greater than all previous administrations put together? Tip O'Neill, although part of the problem, cannot alone be blamed.
Tax revenues are up 59 percent since 1980. Because of our economic growth? No. During Carter's four years, we had growth of 37.2 percent; Reagan's five years have given us 30.7 percent. The new revenues are due to four giant Republican tax increases since 1981.
All republicans rightly chastised Carter for his $38 billion deficit. But they ignore or even defend deficits of $220 billion, as government spending has grown 10.4 percent per year since Reagan took office, while the federal payroll has zoomed by a quarter of a million bureaucrats.
Despite the Supply-Sider-Keynesian claim that "deficits don't matter," the debt presents a grave threat to our country. Thanks to the President and Republican Party, we have lost the chance to reduce the deficit and the spending in a non-crisis fashion. Even worse, big government has been legitimized in a way the Democrats never could have accomplished. It was tragic to listen to Ronald Reagan on the 1986 campaign trail bragging about his high spending on farm subsidies, welfare, warfare, etc., in his futile effort to hold on to control of the Senate.
Instead of cutting some of the immeasurable waste in the Department of Defense, it has gotten worse, with the inevitable result that we are less secure today. Reagan's foreign aid expenditures exceed Eisenhower's, Kennedy's, Johnson's, Nixon's, Ford's, and Carter's put together. Foreign intervention has exploded since 1980. Only an end to military welfare for foreign governments plus a curtailment of our unconstitutional commitments abroad will enable us really to defend ourselves and solve our financial problems.
Amidst the failure of the Gramm-Rudman gimmick, we hear the President and the Republican Party call for a balanced-budget amendment and a line-item veto. This is only a smokescreen. President Reagan, as governor of California, had a line-item veto and virtually never used it. As President he has failed to exercise his constitutional responsibility to veto spending. Instead, he has encouraged it.
Monetary policy has been disastrous as well. The five Reagan appointees to the Federal Reserve Board have advocated even faster monetary inflation than Chairman Volcker, and this is the fourth straight year of double-digit increases. The chickens have yet to come home to roost, but they will, and America will suffer from a Reaganomics that is nothing but warmed-over Keynesianism.
Candidate Reagan in 1980 correctly opposed draft registration. Yet when he had the chance to abolish it, he reneged, as he did on his pledge to abolish the Departments of Education and Energy, or to work against abortion.
Under the guise of attacking drug use and money laundering, the Republican Administration has systematically attacked personal and financial privacy. The effect has been to victimize innocent Americans who wish to conduct their private lives without government snooping. (Should people really be put on a suspected drug dealer list because they transfer $3,000 at one time?) Reagan's urine testing of Americans without probable cause is a clear violation of our civil liberties, as are his proposals for extensive "lie detector" tests.
Under Reagan, the IRS has grown bigger, richer, more powerful, and more arrogant. In the words of the founders of our country, our government has "sent hither swarms" of tax gatherers "to harass our people and eat out their substance." His officers jailed the innocent George Hansen, with the
President refusing to pardon a great American whose only crime was to defend the Constitution. Reagan's new tax "reform" gives even more power to the IRS. Far from making taxes fairer or simpler, it deceitfully raises more revenue for the government to waste.
Knowing this administration's record, I wasn't surprised by its Libyan disinformation campaign, Israeli-Iranian arms-for-hostages swap, or illegal funding of the Contras. All this has contributed to my disenchantment with the Republican Party, and helped me make up my mind.
I want to totally disassociate myself from the policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, massive monetary inflation, indiscriminate military spending, an irrational and unconstitutional foreign policy, zooming foreign aid, the exaltation of international banking, and the attack on our personal liberties and privacy.
After years of trying to work through the Republican Party both in and out of government, I have reluctantly concluded that my efforts must be carried on outside the Republican Party. Republicans know that the Democratic agenda is dangerous to our political and economic health. Yet, in the past six years Republicans have expanded its worst aspects and called them our own. The Republican Party has not reduced the size of government. It has become big government's best friend.
If Ronald Reagan couldn't or wouldn't balance the budget, which Republican leader on the horizon can we possibly expect to do so? There is no credibility left for the Republican Party as a force to reduce the size of government. That is the message of the Reagan years.
I conclude that one must look to other avenues if a successful effort is ever to be achieved in reversing America's direction.
I therefore resign my membership in the Republican Party and enclose my membership card.

When, at the age of twenty-one, Mehmed II (1451-1481) sat on the throne of
the Ottoman Sultans his first thoughts turned to Constantinople. The capital was
all that was left from the mighty Christian Roman Empire and its presence, in
the midst of the dominions of the powerful new rulers of the lands of Romania,
was pregnant with danger. The new Sultan demonstrated diplomatic abilities,
during his early attempts to isolate politically the Byzantine capital, when he
signed treaties with the Emperor's most important Western allies, the Hungarians
and the Venetians. He knew, however, that these were temporary measures, which
would provide him with freedom of movement for a limited time only. To give the
final blow on the half-dead body of the Byzantine Empire he had to move fast. He
was so much preoccupied by his project of conquest that, according to the
contemporary Greek Historian Michael Dukas, his mind was occupied by it day and
night. A successful expedition against his enemy Ibrahim the Emir of Karamania,
in central Asia Minor, postponed briefly his plans. He was back in his capital
Hadrianople in May 1451, where he set in motion his great project. The first
step was to isolate the Byzantine capital, both economically and militarily.
Already, during the winter of 1451 he began recruiting competent builders,
familiar with military works and fortifications, whose mission would be to build
a powerful fortress on the Bosphorus. Its construction, supervised by the
Sultan, began in the middle of April 1452.

Built on the European side, at the
narrowest point of the strait, called initially the Cutter of the throat
(Boghaz-kesen), it became eventually known as Rumeli Hisar. It was a huge
complex of strong fortifications whose task was to shut completely, by its
artillery, to Western and Byzantine vessels the route to and from the Black Sea.
The new fortress complemented the one that had been built on the Anatolian
shore, at the time of Sultan Bayazid I (1389-1402), about six miles south of
Constantinople, which was known as Anadolu Hisar. The presence of the two
fortresses made clear to everyone that the Sultan was the real master of the
straits. From now on, all ships intending to enter the Black Sea had to pay
tolls. If they refused they would be sank. Indeed, near the end of 1452 a
Venetian vessel attempted to pass without paying the required tolls. It was sank
by the new fortress's guns, its crew of thirty men was taken prisoner. The
officers and sailors were brought to the Sultan, who ordered their immediate
execution. The act was rightly interpreted by the Venetian and Genoese
governments as an indication of hostilities soon to break. However, despite all
the indications and the realization that a new siege of Constantinople was to
begin at any moment, the two Italian Republics, under political and economic
pressures at home, reacted without much enthusiasm.

Help was limited. Indeed, under the command of the brave Giovanni Giustiniani
Longo about 700 well armed men sailed, on two Genoese vessels, for the Byzantine
capital. The ships arrived in the city on January 29, 1453, Giustiniani was
promptly appointed by the Emperor head of the defence. Of the men, 400 were
recruited in Genoa and 300 on the Genoese held island of Chios. Giustiniani's
men composed the largest Western contingent. Also, Venice allowed the Emperor to
recruit a contingent of Cretan soldiers and sailors, who acted heroically during
the siege. The former Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia Isidore, a Cardinal of
the Roman Church, who came to Constantinople as Papal Legate, recruited at
Naples, at the Pope's expense, 200 soldiers. A number of brave men joined the
Emperor in his final stand: Maurizio Cattaneo, the Bocchiardo brothers, Paolo,
Antonio and Troilo, the Castilian nobleman Don Francisco de Toledo, the German
engineer Johannes Grant, and also the Ottoman prince Orhan, who lived at
Constantinople.
Without hinterland and completely cut off from its maritime routes,
Constantinople was doomed. Despite sporadic and desperate Byzantine attempts to
prevent its building, Rumeli Hisar was completed in August 1452. The population
of the blockaded city interpreted its completion as an unmistakable sign that
the final struggle was about to begin. Realizing that all contacts with the
Ottoman side were broken Emperor Constantine XI Palaeologus (1449-1453) ordered
the closing of the city's gates.

The last Byzantine Emperor, born in 1404, was a son of Emperor Manuel II
Palaeologus (1391-1425) and of Helen Dragash, a Serbian Princess. His brother
John VIII (1425-1448) hoped that by accepting the union of the Churches, and the
expected Western military assistance, he could stave off the collapse of the
state. Leading a Greek delegation, which included the greatest secular and
religious minds of fifteenth century Hellenism, he travelled to Florence. There,
after long and heated discussions, on July 6, 1439, Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini
and Archbishop Bessarion of Nicaea read in Latin and Greek the Act of the Union.
Despite the official document and the Emperor's willingness to implement it, the
end could not be avoided. The agreement was seen by the people, back home, as
submission to the Papacy and betrayal of the Orthodox faith. The promised
crusade, to save Constantinople, collapsed on the battlefield of Varna, in
Bulgaria, on the 10 of November 1444. Four years later, on October 31 1448, John
VIII, depressed and disillusioned, passed away. As he had no children the
imperial crown passed on to his brother Constantine, who was, at the time, ruler
of the Peloponnese. Crowned in the Cathedral at Mystra, his capital, on January
6, 1449, the new and last Christian Roman Emperor entered, two months later, on
March 12, the isolated Imperial capital.

Militarily insignificant, economically depending on the Italian maritime
Republics, hoping for Western assistance and a new crusade, the Byzantine
Empire, or rather its capital, a head without body, waited for the inevitable.
Thanks to the strong, dignified and proud personality of its last ruler, who in
other times might have been a fine Emperor, the political end of the Medieval
Greek state and the physical end of its leader acquired the dimensions of an
apotheosis.

Behind the ancient walls of Constantinople the new Emperor followed his late
brother's policies: he could not do much else. Thus, amid hostile reactions by
most of the city's population, he attempted to revive the Union by proclaiming
it in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia on December 12, 1452. No practical results
came out of the enforced proclamation. Despite Constantine's final appeals to
the Pope and to his Western allies, no crusade and no substantial help ever
materialized. Promises and expressions of sympathy were all that was sent to
him, and in any case he did not live long enough to receive them. As a matter of
fact, in the middle of May of 1453 the Venetian Senate was still deliberating
about sending a fleet to Constantinople. Even the Genoese colony of Pera, facing
the capital, attempted to stay neutral. It did, but neutrality did not help it
when the Sultan succeeded the Roman Emperors. To the people of the capital, the
only thing that mattered now, at the end of political freedom and at the
beginning of the long darkness of foreign occupation, was holding on to the
ancestral faith.

When the siege began the population of the capital amounted, including the
refugees from the surrounding area, to about 50.000 people. Behind the enormous
walls were inhabited areas separated from each other by fields, orchards,
gardens, or even by deserted neighborhoods. Most inhabitants lived near the port
area, along the Golden Horn, in view of the Genoese colony of Pera. The city's
garrison included 5.000 Greeks and about 2.000 foreigners, mostly Genoese and
Venetian. Giustiniani's men were well armed and trained, the rest included small
units of well trained soldiers, armed civilians, sailors, volunteers from the
foreign communities and also monks. What the defenders lacked in training and
armament they possessed in fighting spirit. Indeed, most were killed fighting. A
few small caliber artillery pieces, used by the garrison proved ineffective.
Despite disagreements over religious policies, and what was seen as capitulation
to the Pope, the civilian population supported the Emperor overwhelmingly. The
alternative was disastrous. The people, men and women, participated in the
repairs of the walls and in the deepening of the foss, volunteers manned
observation posts, food provisions were collected, gold and silver objects held
in the churches were melted to make coins in order to pay the foreign soldiers,
the city's harbor, the Golden Horn, was shut by a huge chain. With the exception
of about 700 Italian residents of the city who fled on board seven ships, on the
night of February 26, no one else imitated them. The rest of the population,
Greek and foreigner, fought until the bitter end.

At the beginning of 1453 the Sultan's army began massing on the plain of
Adrianople. Troops came from every region of the Empire. Possibly well over
150.000 men, including thousands of irregulars, from many nationalities, who
were attracted by the prospect of looting, were ready to assault the city. The
regular troops were well equipped and well trained. The elite corps of the
Janissaries composed of abducted Christian children, forcibly converted to
Islam, and subsequently trained as professional soldiers, constituted the
spear-head of the Ottoman army. The besieging army included a number of
artillery pieces, of which one, facing the Military Gate of St Romanus, was
particularly huge and was expected to cause heavy damage to the walls in that
area. The army, accompanied by crowds of fanatic Dervishes, started moving
slowly towards Constantinople. A few small towns, still in Greek hands, near the
capital were soon occupied by the Sultan's army. Of those towns Selymvria
resisted longer.

During the first week of April the Ottoman troops began taking their assigned
positions in front of the city walls. The Sultan had his tent installed north of
the civil Gate of St Romanus, near the river Lycus, facing the 5th Military
Gate, also known as Military Gate of St Romanus. He ordered the big canon to be
installed in the same area. To protect the troops, a protective trench was
opened in front of the Ottoman units, the earth from it was accumulated on the
city side and on top of it was erected a palissade. On the 12th arrived from
Gallipoli the Ottoman fleet. Composed of approximately 200 ships of various
sizes and displacements, it sealed the Byzantine capital from the sea. Mehmed's
admiral was the Bulgarian renegade Suleiman Baltoghlu. On his side the Emperor
distributed his troops as best as he could. It was impossible, with the
available garrison, to cover the entire walled circumference of the capital,
about fourteen miles long. However, it was clear to all that the main attack
would be delivered by the enemy along the land-walls, about four miles long.
With the exception of the Blachernae section of the walls, at the north-eastern
end of the land side, the city was protected, on the land side, by a triple
wall, with a deep foss in front of it. On the sea side, including the Golden
Horn port area, the city was protected by a single wall.

Given the availability of troops and the critical sections of the walls,
Giustiniani, with most of his men, as well as the Emperor and his best troops,
took position in the Military St Romanus's Gate sector, where heavy damage was
expected to be inflicted by the canon and the main Ottoman assault to be
launched. The Venetian Bailo (the Head of the Venetian Community at
Constantinople) Girolamo Minotto and his countrymen were charged with the
defence of the region of Blachernae, where the Imperial Palace was located.
Minotto and his men faced the European troops of Karadja Pasha. Across the
Golden Horn, to the left of Pera, ready to intervene, stood the troops of
Zaganos Pasha. Along the southern section of the land-walls the defenders faced
the Anatolian troops under the command of Ishak Pasha. The Grand Duke Luke
Notaras, with a reserve unit took position near the walls, at the Petra
neighborhood, in the north-eastern section of the city. Another reserve unit was
stationed near the church of the Holy Apostles, near the center of the city.
Most units were positioned on and behind the land-walls. The sea-walls were
thinly manned. To protect the entrance to the port the Venetian commander of the
small fleet of the defenders, Alviso Diedo, ordered ten ships to take position
behind the chain.
According to Islamic tradition the Sultan, before the beginning of
hostilities, demanded the surrender of the city, promising to spare the lives of
its inhabitants and respect their property. In a proud and dignified reply the
Emperor rejected Mehmed's demand. Almost immediately the Ottoman guns began
firing. The continuous bombardment soon brought down a section of the walls near
the Gate of Charisius, north of the Emperor's position. When night fell,
everyone, who was available, rushed to repair the damage. Meanwhile Ottoman
troops were trying to fill the foss, particularly in areas in front of the weak
sections of the walls which were now constantly bombarded. Other units began
attempts to mine weak sections of the wall. On the port area a first attempt by
the Ottoman fleet to test the defenders' reaction failed.

Until the end of the siege the Ottoman guns did not stop pounding the walls.
Heavy damage was inflicted. The defenders did their best to limit it. They
hanged bales of wool, sheets of leather. Nothing could help. The section of the
walls in the Lycus valley, near the Emperor's position, was heavily damaged. The
foss in front of it was almost filled by the besiegers. Behind it, the defenders
erected a stockade, Night after night men and women came from the city to repair
the damaged sections.

The first assault was launched during the night of April 18. Thousands of men
attacked the stockade and attempted to burn it down. Giustiniani, his men, and
their Greek comrades fought valiantly. Well armed, protected by armor, fighting
in a restricted area, they succeeded after four hours of bloody struggle to
repulse the enemy.

On Friday, 20 April, in the morning, appeared in the sea of Marmora, near
Constantinople, four large vessels loaded with provisions for the city. Three
were Genoese and one, a big transport, was Greek. The Greek captain's name was
Flantanellas. Baltoghlu dispatched immediately his fleet to attack and capture
the ships. The operation seemed easy and soon the ships were surrounded by the
smaller Ottoman vessels. Everyone in the city, who was not busy with the
defence, rushed to the sea-walls to watch the spectacle. The Sultan on
horseback, his officers and a multitude of soldiers, rushed to the shore to
watch the battle. Excited and unable to restrain himself, screaming orders at
Baltoghlu, the young Sultan rode into the shallow water. Fighting, the big ships
continued pushing the smaller ones, and helped by the wind they were now close
to the south-eastern corner of the city. Then the wind dropped and the current
began pushing them towards the coast on which stood the Sultan and his troops.
Fighting continued, with the Christian sailors hurling on the enemy crews
stones, javelins and all sorts of projectiles, including Greek Fire. Eventually
the four vessels came so close to each other that they became bound together,
forming a floating castle. Around sunset the wind rose and the big ships,
pushing their way through the mass, and the wrecks, of the enemy vessels, hailed
by thousands of people who were standing on the walls, entered the Golden Horn.
Next morning Baltoghlu was dismissed by the Sultan, who was so furious that he
ordered the beheading of his admiral. The unlucky admiral was replaced by a
favorite of Mehmed, Hamza Bey.

This event convinced the Sultan and his commanders that the city had to be
more tightly besieged and that the naval arm of the besieged had to be
neutralized. Mehmed's ingenious plan, formulated before the events of April 20,
consisted in bringing part of his fleet into the Golden Horn. Indeed, thousands
of laborers had been building, for some time, a road overland from the
Bosphorus, alongside the walls of Pera, to a place called Valley of the Springs,
on the shore of the Golden Horn, above Pera. On April 22 to the horror of the
besieged a long procession of ships, sitting on wooden platforms were pulled by
teams of oxen and men, over the road, into the port area. About seventy boats
entered the Golden Horn. The leaders of the defence held immediately an
emergency meeting. Various plans were discussed and it was finally decided to
attempt to burn the enemy boats, which were in the Golden Horn. After a
succession of postponments the attempt was carried out during the night of April
28. Betrayed by someone from Pera, it failed miserably. Hit by Ottoman guns the
Christian ships suffered heavy damage. About forty sailors captured by the enemy
were executed.

Despite this failure the situation in the Golden Horn became, more or less,
stable. Superior naval training, and better naval construction, eventually
prevented Hamza's ships from inflicting serious damage on the allied units.
However, the Sultan's idea was a military success. Indeed, in 1204 the Crusaders
had assaulted the city from the sea-walls and the Greeks had not forgotten it.
They feared a repetition of that assault.

On the land side the bombardment continued, more walls collapsed, and when
night fell everyone rushed to close the gap, reinforce the stockades, build here
and there. Moreover, food was wanting and the authorities did their best to
distribute it equally. Worse, help was not coming. Everyone was watching and
waiting for the sails of the Western ships to appear coming out of the
Dardanelles. In early May a fast boat was sent out, to seek the allied fleet in
the Aegean and tell its commanders to hurry.

During the night of May 7 a new assault was launched against the damaged
section, where Giustiniani stood. It failed again and then in the night of May
12 another came and failed. It was launched at the junction of the Blachernae
wall and of the old Theodosian one. During that time mining and countermining
continued. Sometimes fighting went on underground. Sometimes the tunnels
collapsed and suffocated the miners.

On May 23 the boat that had been sent out to locate the Christian fleet
returned to the city. Its crew brought bad news. Nothing was in sight. The
defenders were alone, no help was coming. The men of the crew, obeying their
duty, decided to return to the doomed city. Realizing that everything was lost
Constantine's chief advisors begged him to leave the city. He could still get
out and seek help. His father Manuel II had done the same in 1399, at the time
of the blockade of the city by Sultan Bayazid. The Emperor refused to discuss
the issue. He had already decided to stay in his capital, fight for it and
perish.

Meanwhile, rumors were circulating in the Ottoman camp about the Venetians
finally mobilizing their fleet, or about the Hungarians preparing to cross the
Danube. The siege was going on without end in sight. The Sultan's Vizier Halil
Chandarli, had strong reservations about the siege from the beginning. He was
worried about western intervention and he looked upon the whole operation with
anxiety. During a meeting of the Sultan's advisors, held on May 25, the Vizir
told Mehmed to raise the siege. Pursuing it might bring unknown consequences to
Ottoman interests. The Sultan, also depressed because of the prolongation of the
operation, finally decided to launch a grand scale final assault on the city. He
was supported by younger commanders like Zaganos Pasha, a Christian converted to
Islam. Halil was overruled and all present decided to continue the siege.

While the artillery continued pounding the walls without interruption,
preparations for the big assault, which was to take place on Tuesday 29 May,
were accelerated. Material was thrown into the foss which faced the collapsed
ramparts, scaling-ladders were distributed. The Magistrates of Pera were warned
not to give any assistance to the besieged. The Sultan swore to distribute
fairly the treasures found in the city. According to tradition the troops were
free to loot and sack the city for three days. He assured his troops that
success was imminent, the defenders were exhausted, some sections of the walls
had collapsed. It would be a general assault, throughout the line of the
land-walls, as well as in the port area.

Then the troops were ordered to rest
and recover their strength.
In the city everyone realized that the great moment had come. During Monday,
May 28, some last repairs were done on the walls and the stockades, in the
collapsed sections, were reinforced. In the city, while the bells of the
churches rang mournfully, citizens and soldiers joined a long procession behind
the holy relics brought out of the churches. Singing hymns in Greek, Italian or
Catalan, Orthodox and Catholic, men, women, children, soldiers, civilians,
clergy, monks and nuns, knowing that they were going to die shortly, made peace
with themselves, with God and with eternity.

When the procession ended the Emperor met with his commanders and the
notables of the city. In a philosophical speech he told his subjects that the
end of their time had come. In essence he told them that Man had to be ready to
face death when he had to fight for his faith, for his country, for his family
or for his sovereign. All four reasons were now present. Furthermore, his
subjects, who were the descendants of Greeks and Romans, had to emulate their
great ancestors. They had to fight and sacrifice themselves without fear. They
had lived in a great city and they were now going to die defending it. As for
himself, he was going to die fighting for his faith, for his city and for his
people. He also thanked the Italian soldiers, who had not abandoned the great
city in its final moments. He still believed that the garrison could repulse the
enemy. They all had to be brave, proud warriors and do their duty. He thanked
all present for their contribution to the defence of the city and asked them to
forgive him, if he had ever treated them without kindness. Meanwhile the great
church of Saint Sophia was crowded. Thousands of people were moving towards the
church. Inside, Orthodox and Catholic priests were holding mass. People were
singing hymns, others were openly crying, others were asking each other for
forgiveness. Those who were not serving on the ramparts also went to the church,
among them was seen, for a brief moment, the Emperor. People confessed and took
communion. Then those who were going to fight rode or walked back to the
ramparts.

From the great church the Emperor rode to the Palace at Blachernae. There he
asked his household to forgive him. He bade the emotionally shattered men and
women farewell, left his Palace and rode away, into the night, for a last
inspection of the defence positions. Then he took his battle position.
The assault began after midnight, into the 29th of May 1453. Wave after wave
the attackers charged. Battle cries, accompanied by the sound of drums, trumpets
and fifes, filled the air. The bells of the city churches began ringing
frantically. Orders, screams and the sound of trumpets shattered the night.
First came the irregulars, an unreliable, multinational crowd of Christians and
Moslems, who were attracted by the opportunity of enriching themselves by
looting the great city, the last capital of the Roman Empire. They attacked
throughout the line of fortifications and they were massacred by the tough
professionals, who were fighting under the orders of Giustiniani. The battle
lasted two hours and the irregulars withdrew in disorder, leaving behind an
unknown number of dead and wounded.
Next came the Anatolian troops of Ishak Pasha. They tried to storm the
stockades. They fought tenaciously, even desperately trying to break through the
compact ranks of the defenders. The narrow area in which fighting went on helped
the defenders. The could hack left and right with their maces and swords and
shoot missiles onto the mass of attackers without having to aim. A group of
attackers crashed through a gap and for a moment it seemed that they could enter
the city. The were assaulted by the Emperor and his men and were soon slain.
This second attack also failed.
But now came the Janissaries, disciplined, professional, ruthless warriors,
superbly trained, ready to die for their master, the Sultan. They assaulted the
now exhausted defenders, they were pushing their way over bodies of dead and
dying Moslem and Christian soldiers. With tremendous effort the Greek and
Italian fighters were hitting back and continued repulsing the enemy. Then a
group of enemy soldiers unexpectedly entered the city from a small sally-port
called Kerkoporta, on the wall of Blachernae, where this wall joined the triple
wall. Fighting broke near the small gate with the defenders trying to eliminate
the intruders.

It was almost day now, the first light, before sunrise, when a shot fired
from a calverin hit Giustiniani. The shot pierced his breastplate and he fell on
the ground. Shaken by his wound and physically exhausted, his fighting spirit
collapsed. Despite the pleas of the Emperor, who was fighting nearby, not to
leave his post, the Genoese commander ordered his men to take him out of the
battle-field. A Gate in the inner wall was opened for the group of Genoese
soldiers, who were carrying their wounded commander, to come into the city. The
soldiers who were fighting near the area saw the Gate open, their comrades
carrying their leader crossing into the city, and they though that the defence
line had been broken. They all rushed through the Gate leaving the Emperor and
the Greek fighters alone between the two walls. This sudden movement did not
escape the attention of the Ottoman commanders. Frantic orders were issued to
the troops to concentrate their attack on the weakened position. Thousands
rushed to the area. The stockade was broken. The Greeks were now squeezed by
crowds of Janissaries between the stockade and the wall. More Janissaries came
in and many reached the inner wall.

Meanwhile more were pouring in through the Kerkoporta, where the defenders
had not been able to eliminate the first intruders. Soon the first enemy flags
were seen on the walls. The Emperor and his commanders were trying frantically
to rally their troops and push back the enemy. It was too late. Waves of
Janissaries, followed by other regular units of the Ottoman army, were crashing
throught the open Gates, mixed with fleeing and slaughtered Christian soldiers.
Then the Emperor, realizing that everything was lost, removed his Imperial
insignia, and followed by his cousin Theophilus Palaeologus, the Castilian Don
Francisco of Toledo, and John Dalmatus, all four holding their swords, charged
into the sea of the enemy soldiers, hitting left and right in a final act of
defiance. They were never seen again.

Now thousands of Ottoman soldiers were pouring into the city. One after the
other the city Gates were opened. The Ottoman flags began appearing on the
walls, on the towers, on the Palace at Blachernae. Civilians in panic were
rushing to the churches. Others locked themselves in their homes, some continued
fighting in the streets, crowds of Greeks and foreigners were rushing towards
the port area. The allied ships were still there and began collecting refugees.
The Cretan soldiers and sailors, manning three towers near the entrance of the
Golden Horn, were still fighting and had no intention of surrendering. At the
end, the Ottoman commanders had to agree to a truce and let them sail away,
carrying their arms.

The excesses which followed, druing the early hours of the Ottoman victory,
are described in detail by eyewitnesses. They were, and unfortunately still are, a
common practice, almost a ritual, among all armies capturing enemy strongholds and
territory after a prolonged and violent struggle. Thus, bands of soldiers began now
looting. Doors were broken, private homes were looted, their tenants were
massacred. Shops in the city markets were
looted. Monasteries and Convents were broken in. Their tenants were killed, nuns
were raped, many, to avoid dishonor, killed themselves. Killing, raping,
looting, burning, enslaving, went on and on according to tradition. The troops
had to satisfy themselves. The great doors of Saint Sophia were forced open, and
crowds of angry soldiers came in and fell upon the unfortunate worshippers.
Pillaging and killing in the holy place went on for hours. Similar was the fate
of worshippers in most churches in the city. Everything that could be taken from
the splendid buildings was taken by the new masters of the Imperial capital.
Icons were destroyed, precious manuscripts were lost forever. Thousands of
civilians were enslaved, soldiers fought over young boys and young women. Death
and enslavement did not distinguish among social classes. Nobles and peasants
were treated with equal ruthlessness.

In some distant neighborhoods, especially near the sea walls in the sea of
Marmora, such as Psamathia, but also in the Golden Horn at Phanar and Petrion,
where local fishermen opened the Gates, while the enemy soldiers were pouring
into the city from the land Gates, local magistrates negotiated successfully
their surrender to Hamza Bey's officers. Their act saved the lives of their
fellow citizens. Furthermore their churches were not= desecrated. Meanwhile, the
crews of the Ottoman fleet abandoned their ships to rush into the city. They
were worried that the land army was going to take everything. The collapse of
discipline gave the Christian ships time to sail out of the Golden Horn.
Venetian, Genoese and Greek ships, loaded with refugees, some of them having
reached the ships swimming from the city, sailed away to freedom. On one of the
Genoese vessels was Giustiniani. He was taken from the boat at Chios where he
died, from his wound, a few days later.

The Sultan, with his top commanders and his guard of Janissaries, entered
the city in the afternoon of the first day of occupation. Constantinople
was finally his and he intended to make it the capital of his mighty Empire. He
toured the ruined city. He visited Saint Sophia which he ordered to be turned
into a mosque. He also ordered an end to the killing. What he saw was
desolation, destruction, death in the streets, ruins, desecrated churches. It
was too much. It is said that, as he rode through the streets of the former
capital of the Christian Roman Empire, the city of Constantine, moved to tears
he murmured: "What a city we have given over to plunder and destruction".
Selected Bibliography
The present narrative describing the siege and fall of Constantinople, in 1453,
is based entirely on accounts written by eyewitnesses (people who were in the city during
the events) as well as on modern international scholarship.
In particular see:
(1)Nicolo Barbaro, "Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453", translated from the Italian by
J.R. Jones, an Exposition-University Book, Exposition Press, New York, 1969. The Venetian surgeon
Nicolo Barbaro was present in the city throughout the siege and witnessed the events described
by him in his diary.
(2) Among recent studies, the basic reference on the subject is Sir Steven Runciman's, "The Fall
Constantinople, 1453", Cambridge University Press, 1969. This work, by the British Historian, a
Byzantine studies scholar, is based on an exhaustive study and analysis of
existing sourse material.
Additional Referecnes:
(1) Babinger, F., "Mahomet II le Conquerant et son Temps, 1432-1481", translated from the German by H.E. del
Medico, Paris, 1954.
(2) Pears ,E., "The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the story of the Capture of Constantinople" by the
Turks", London, 1903.
(3) Schlumberger, G., Le siege, la prise et la sac de Constantionple en 1453", Paris,
1926.
(4) Walter, G., La ruine de Byzance", Paris, 1958.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

This is Orwellian language in action. Mr. Carlson states that because the US has moral authority (we're the good guys) and do not seek hegemony, the US can destroy Iran (and all its people?) in a pre-emptive strike because they're evil (the bad guys). This "good/bad" comparison is overt in this clip, but always covert in US corporate media coverage: the US is "good" and Iran is "bad" (remember from W. Bush they are among the "axis of evil"). Mr. Carlson later clarified his remarks that he says Iran's government is evil and his real concern is about US energy prices; with no remorse over "wiping Iran off the map.”

What is never mentioned in US corporate media reporting is the history that it is the US that has waged war on Iran by overthrowing their democracy from 1953-1979, and then acting with Iraq for an unlawful War of Aggression that killed up to a million Iranians from 1980-1988. Because these facts are not disputed as far as I know, and in obvious violation of war law, that makes the US guilty of Wars of Aggression on Iran that again killed up to a million of their people.

So how does this history of US war on Iran for 35 consecutive years match with FOX News' Mr. Carlson's statement that the US does not seek hegemony and has moral authority while Iran is the evil one?

FOX news not reporting the history of US takeover of Iran's government and war upon them makes their reporting an obvious lie of omission that anyone concerned with comprehensive reporting immediately notices. For those interested in this history:

There are more lies of omission and commission from US corporate media that also publishes our texts. How many of you are familiar with Abraham Lincoln as a freshman member of Congress in his famously powerful prose delivering a speech that proved President Polk in obvious violation of the Adams-Onis Treaty, and that US soldiers were 400 miles into land forever promised to Mexico? Our texts today call this a "border dispute;" a lie of commission that the US violated a treaty in crystal-clear language, and a lie of omission to remove Lincoln's refutation of the President's "reasons" for war. From US war history in 2 minutes:

Want a brighter future? Recognize and end the “emperor has no clothes” obvious crimes of the present as a first step. Standing for a US government that defends unalienable rights that begin with “life,” the freedom that government will not murder, is a good place to start.

Analysts for a Department of Homeland Security
program that monitors social networks like Twitter and Facebook have
been instructed to produce reports on policy debates related to the
department, a newly disclosed manual shows.

But the department said it never put that category into practice when
the program began in 2010. Officials repeated that portrayal in
testimony last week before an oversight hearing by a House Homeland Security subcommittee.

“I am not aware of any information we have gathered on government
proposals,” testified Richard Chavez, the director of the office that
oversees the National Operations Center, which runs the program.

Still, the 2011 manual, which was disclosed this week as part of a
Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, lists a series of categories that
constitute an “item of interest” warranting a report. One category is
discussion on social media networks of “policy directives, debates and
implementations related to DHS.”

It is not clear whether the department has produced such reports.
Matthew Chandler, a department spokesman, said Wednesday that in
practice the program had been limited to “social media monitoring for
situational awareness only.”

He also said the department would review the reference guide and related
materials to make sure they “clearly and accurately convey the
parameters and intention of the program.”

Ginger McCall of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy
group that filed the lawsuit and obtained the document, argued that the
manual shows that the monitoring may have gone beyond its limited
portrayal by department officials.

“The D.H.S. continues to monitor the Internet for criticism of the
government,” she said. “This suspicionless, overbroad monitoring quells
legitimate First Amendment activity and exceeds the agency’s legal
authority."

A federal statute
cited by officials last week as the legal basis for the program gives
the National Operations Center the authority “to provide situational
awareness” for officials “in the event of a natural disaster, act of
terrorism or other man-made disaster” and to “ensure that critical
terrorism and disaster-related information reaches government decision
makers.”

Officials have stressed that the program does not collect personally
identifying information, like the names or Twitter account handles of
the people making comments, and that it does not monitor, review or
collect First Amendment-protected speech.

Still, the program also monitors articles and broadcasts by traditional
media outlets. The 2011 manual says that analysts, in addition to
flagging information related to matters like terrorism and natural
disasters, should also identify “media reports that reflect adversely on
D.H.S. and response activities” and collect “both positive and negative
reports” on department components as well organizations outside of the
department.

The manual includes keywords that analysts should search for. A list of
agencies in the keyword section includes not only those in the
department dealing with matters like immigration
and emergency management, but also the Central Intelligence Agency,
several law enforcement agencies in the Justice Department, the Red
Cross and the United Nations.

At the hearing last week, lawmakers of both parties said it made sense
for the department to use the Internet to gather information about
emerging events, but they voiced concerns that if it went further than
that, the program might chill people’s freedom of speech and willingness
to express dissent online.

“Other private individuals reading your Facebook status updates is
different than the Department of Homeland Security reading them,
analyzing them and possibly disseminating and collecting them for future
purposes,” said the chairman of the subcommittee, Representative
Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania.

Mary Ellen Callahan, the department’s chief privacy director, testified
that the program was interested only in events within the department’s
mission — like disasters, attacks or continuing operational problems. As
an example, she cited a situation in which people post to Twitter about
an unusually long line at a particular airport checkpoint.

She also played down the use of keyword searches the program uses for
articles and postings on social networks, portraying them as simply
related to disasters — “you know, flood, tornado and things like that.”

The 2011 manual contains a fuller list. Many keywords are closely
related to various disasters. But a handful are potentially more
sweeping, like China, cops, hacking, illegal immigrants, Iran, Iraq, marijuana, organized crime, police, pork and radicals.

"Most of his security team is based at headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.
and sits at clusters of desks close enough to take dead aim at one
another with Nerf darts. Broken roughly into five parts, the team has 10
people review new features being launched, 8 monitor the site for bugs
and privacy flaws, 25 handle requests for user information from law
enforcement, and a few build criminal and civil cases against those who
misbehave on the network"

So only 10 people review new features for facebook and 150% more people send information to the government.

1. Iran has threatened to fight back if attacked, and that’s a war crime. War crimes must be punished.

2. My television says Iran has nukes. I’m sure it’s true this time. Just like with North Korea. I’m sure they’re next. We only bomb places that really truly have nukes and are in the Axis of Evil. Except Iraq, which was different.

3. Iraq didn’t go so badly. Considering how lousy its government is, the place is better off with so many people having left or died. Really, that one couldn’t have worked out better if we’d planned it.

4. When we threaten to cut off Iran’s oil, Iran threatens to cut off Iran’s oil, which is absolutely intolerable. What would we do without that oil? And what good is buying it if they want to sell it?

5. Iran was secretly behind 9-11. I read it online. And if it wasn’t, that’s worse. Iran hasn’t attacked another nation in centuries, which means its next attack is guaranteed to be coming very soon.

6. Iranians are religious nuts, unlike Israelis and Americans. Most Israelis don’t want to attack Iran, but the Holy Israeli government does. To oppose that decision would be to sin against God.

7. Iranians are so stupid that when we murder their scientists they try to hire a car dealer in Texas to hire a drug gang in Mexico to murder a Saudi ambassador in Washington, and then they don’t do it — just to make us look bad for catching them.

7. b. Oh, and stupid people should be bombed. They’re not civilized.

8. War is good for the U.S. economy, and the Iranian economy too. Troops stationed in Iran would buy stuff. And women who survived the war would have more rights. Like in Virginia. We owe Iranians this after that little mishap in 1953.

9. This is the only way to unite the region. Either we bomb Iran and it swears its eternal love to us. Or, if necessary, we occupy Iran to liberate it like its neighbors. Which shouldn’t take long. Look how well Afghanistan is going already.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday near Ehrhardt, S.C.

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

"It didn't work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal," Hindi said in a news release. "Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave."

He said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway.

"Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out," Hindi said in the release. "As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter."

He claimed the shooters were "in tree cover" and "fled the scene on small motorized vehicles."

"It is important to note how dangerous this was, as they were shooting toward and into a well-travelled highway," Hindi stated in the release. He said someone from SHARK called the Colleton County Sheriff's Department, which took a report of the incident.

The Colleton County Sheriff's Department filed a malicious damage to property incident report.

According to the report, Hindi told the responding deputy the group's remote-controlled aircraft "was hovering over U.S. 601 when he heard a shot come from the wood line. The shot sounded to him that it was of small caliber."

The incident report went on to state that "once shot, the helicopter lost lift and crash landed on the roadway of U.S. 601."

The deputy noted in the report that he was unable to speak to anyone at Broxton Bridge Plantation following the incident.

Hindi estimated damage to the drone at around $200 to $300.

Hindi said he will seek charges against those who shot down the drone.

"This was SHARK's first encounter with the Broxton Bridge Plantation, but it will certainly not be the last," Hindi said in the release. "We are already making plans for a considerably upscaled action in 2013."

Can you even FATHOM what it would be like here if China were assassinating our scientists?

Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, "has been working as the deputy in charge of commerce at the Natanz site," said a posting on the website of Sharif University in Tehran, from which Ahmadi Roshan graduated around a decade ago.

The killing of Roshan was similar to previous assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran has blamed on Israel and the United States. Both countries have denied the accusations.

"The responsibility of this explosion falls on the Zionist regime," the governor of Tehran province, Safar Ali Bratloo, told Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam broadcaster.

"The method of this terrorist action is similar to previous actions that targeted Iran's nuclear scientists," he said.
Full Story

And here is RAMZPAUL's hilarious take on the situation. Up until a few days ago I was unfamiliar with him but I have seen several of his youtubes videos and have subscribed, I expect him to be a regular here on this site.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Over 2 years ago I asked if you would take time to Help Spread The Word In that time this website has grown immensely. We now sit with over 200,000 visits, and see close to 1000 new visitors per day. I am very encouraged by this and again I want to ask for your help in continuing to spread stories and videos like these around the net. Starting a website from scratch and gaining any sort of readership is a slow slow task, but a very rewarding one.

I have never been busier in my personal life, and I have never been more dedicated to this blog. The bigger it gets the harder I want to work at it. I am posting more than ever before, but I do not have the time to promote and that is where I need help.

So if you have the time (only a few minutes) these actions you can take do help, and they don't just help me, this is an excellent way to spread any kind of videos or articles that you want.

A Darwin teen model who has been disqualified from a 'Grid Girls' competition over a racist post on her Facebook page says she did not realise her comments would be such a big deal.

Ellen Musk, 19, was an entrant in the Finke Desert Race Grid Girls contest and was hoping to be selected as one of 10 winners who would go on to become voluntary ambassadors for the race.

But a status update on her Facebook profile last Thursday morning has led to her disqualification.

"All I can hear is very absurd c--ns yelling angrily from downstairs and I'm on level 22 WTF?" she posted.

The comment prompted many angry responses from friends, to which Ms Musk replied: "Ok, is n--ga a better word?"

Ms Musk insists she meant no harm.

"I posted a status on Facebook… just thinking it's Facebook, it's just my friends, it's nothing that’s going to end up in the news, nothing that anybody's going to have a big crack about," she told ninemsn.

"I don't have anything against indigenous people whatsoever. I didn't mean to offend anybody but obviously I have."

She had not heard from the organisers of the Grid Girl competition but believed they had jumped to conclusions.

"I just want them to hear my side of the story so they can understand I don't have a problem with Aboriginal people whatsoever," she said.

But it was too late for the Finke Desert Race coordinators, who released a statement earlier today confirming Ms Musk's entry had been dismissed.

"The Finke Desert Race and the Finke Grid Girls do not condone or tolerate any 'racist' comments or attitudes. Being a Grid Girl is essentially being an ambassador of our great race, and any such comments are unrepresentative of our values," the statement read.

The race is an off-road, two-day contest for bikes, cars, buggies and quads which starts in Alice Springs and ends 420km away in the Finke community of Aputula.

Back in the summer of 2009, a peculiar story circulated when
two Japanese individuals were arrested trying to smuggle $134 billion
in US bonds into Switzerland from Italy. The story quickly died down
after it was subsequently reported that the bonds were merely fake bearer bonds.
Nobody heard much about it since then. Until today, when out of the
blue we get a new story which blows that one out of the water. According
to Bloomberg, "Italian anti-mafia prosecutors said they seized a record $6 trillion of allegedly fake U.S. Treasury bonds,
an amount that’s almost half of the U.S.’s public debt." From here the
story just gets weirder: "The bonds were found hidden in makeshift
compartments of three safety deposit boxes in Zurich, the prosecutors
from the southern city of Potenza said in an e-mailed statement. The
Italian authorities arrested eight people in connection with the probe,
dubbed “Operation Vulcanica,” the prosecutors said. The U.S. embassy in
Rome has examined the securities dated 1934, which had a nominal value of $1 billion apiece, they said in the statement. Officials for the embassy didn’t have an immediate comment." ...And weirder: "The
individuals involved were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian
sources, according to phone conversations monitored by the police." ...And really, really weird: "The fraud posed “severe threats” to international financial stability, the prosecutors said in the statement." Ok great, however one thing we don't get is just how can $6 trillion in glaringly fake bombs be a "threat to international financial stability."
More from Bloomberg:

The financial fraud uncovered by the Italian
prosecutors in Potenza includes two checks issued through HSBC Holdings
Plc in London for 205,000 pounds ($325,000), checks that weren’t
backed by available funds, the prosecutors said. As part of the probe,
fake bonds for $2 billion were also seized in Rome.

HSBC spokesman Patrick Humphris in London declined to comment when contacted by telephone.

Phony U.S. securities have been seized in Italy before and there
were at least three cases in 2009. Italian police seized phony U.S.
Treasury bonds with a face value of $116 billion in August of 2009 and
$134 billion of similar securities in June of that year.

The U.S. Secret Service averages about 100 cases a year related to bonds and other fictitious instruments.

As a reminder, total US debt in circulation is just over $10
trillion. So if the allegedly "fake" bonds were sufficiently
threatening to put international financial stability at risk, just what is going on here?
Some more from the BBC:

US officials confirmed that the bonds were counterfeit.

Fake US securities have been seized in Italy before and there were at least three cases in 2009.

But this case is on a different scale to previous investigations as
the fake bonds have a value equivalent to almost half of the entire US
debt pile.

"Everything began with an investigation into mafia clans in the
Vulture-Melfese area in the southern Basilicata region," said Giovanni
Colangelo, the head of the prosecutor's office in Potenza.

Washington, DC - It's not often that Univision, the
leading Spanish-language television network in the United States,
releases its content in languages other than Spanish. It is, after all, a
Spanish-language television network. But earlier this month the
broadcaster did something out of the ordinary, screening an English
version of a recent report on Iran that's received a rapturous reception
from neoconservatives in Washington. And it at least appears to have
done so at the behest of its hawkish new fan club.
Why would a network best known for sappy telenovelas shift to
producing sloppy war propaganda - and English-language propaganda at
that?

Perhaps, as is usually the case with the corporate press,
Univision's bias and peculiar programming choices are best explained by
simply noting who owns it: Israeli-American businessman Haim Saban, a
self-described “one-issue guy” - that issue being Israel - who has been up front about purchasing media outlets to promote his own political views.

While those views are well-known if you look for them - hint: his
public statements on Iran have invoked the Holocaust - they're also not
hard to gather from the right-wing-infused investigative reports
Univision has been airing since he took over.

Originally broadcast in Spanish late last year, the ever-so-subtly
titled report that's driving the neoconservative community wild - “La Amenaza Iraní”,
or “The Iranian Threat” - received an unusual February 8 screening, in
English, at the neoconservative Hudson Institute, a Washington think
tank that counts former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff,
convicted felon

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, as one of its top scholars. Focussed on Iran's relations with Latin America, the hour-long piece regurgitates all the pro-war right's by now familiar talking points
about nefarious Islamists acting in concert with leftist Bolivarians to
bring Terror to the US' doorstep, complete with all the ominous music
and images of swarthy foreigners one would expect from a Hollywood movie
or a corporate news report.

“Iran is looking for all the support that it can get to fight back
against its fiercest enemies, Israel and the United States,” declares
reporter Vytenis Didziulis in the opening minute of the piece. “Latin
America, because of its geographical and cultural proximity, may present
the most direct way for Iran to challenge - or even attack - the US.”

What follows is a string of allegations about Iran's dealings with
Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries notable
mostly for how little there is to them. A former Ecuadorian intelligence
official, for instance, fired
by President Rafael Correa for insubordination amid charges that he was
a CIA asset, is given time to claim - without so much as an
incriminating Word file - that his former boss is “sending intelligence
agents to secret Iranian training facilities” in South America. Viewers
are also presented with the information that the Venezuelan military, as
part of efforts to prepare for a feared US invasion back in 2005,
reportedly distributed a manual on asymmetric warfare written based on
the tactics employed by the Lebanese group Hezbollah - tactics the US
military has itself studied.

The “exclusive!” meat of the report is video footage from 2007
purporting to show the Iranian ambassador to Mexico at the time,
Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, discussing a plot to launch cyber-attacks
against the US government with a group of Mexican college students who
were posing as hackers. Nowhere in the footage, though, is there any
evidence to dispute Ghadiri's claim he was merely entertaining a group
of kids he suspected, not without cause, were actually CIA agents.

During a panel discussion following the screening, Didziulis -
seemingly unconcerned with what an appearance at a far-right think tank
would say about the objectivity of his reporting - acknowledged that his
network was the only one to run with the story; every other media
outlet that received the footage declined to run it. Such are
Univision's standards.

False assertions

And such are the network's standards that, beyond the idle
speculation, assertions capable of being debunked with no more than 30
spare seconds and an Internet connection are presented as fact.
Univision news anchor María Elena Salinas, for instance, states in the
programme that, “In November of 2011, the International Atomic Energy
Agency indicated that Iran is in fact developing a nuclear weapon as
part of a covert military operation.”

The agency's actual report,
of course, declares no such thing, instead noting “concerns” about
“possible” military dimensions to Iran's declared, civilian nuclear
energy programme while nevertheless unambiguously stating that it
“continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material” in
the country.

But the report is not without its moments. Those who appreciate dark,
funny-if-these-people-didn't-have-power comedy will appreciate the
segment where Salinas presents the head of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, far-right Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as an
authoritative expert on Latin America. And they'll laugh out loud when
the congresswoman's efforts to stir the American public into a
jingoistic rage ends with her suggesting, amazingly, that Iran just may
well bomb the very countries she regularly accuses of being in Tehran's
pocket.

“Are we going to wait for a bomb to explode in Buenos Aires again? Or
in Managua? Or in La Paz?” Ros-Lehtinen says in Spanish, the last two
cities being the capitals of Nicaragua and Bolivia, which Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad just visited on a diplomatic trip she
herself dubbed a “tour of tyrants” during a recent congressional hearing.

But consistency, facts - they are silly, tiresome things. And they
are of little import in Washington, where scary portrayals of messianic
Muslims armed with WMDs have long trumped boringly rational assessments
of the world. And those attending the Hudson Institute screener,
certainly, were clearly ecstatic to hear their own factually challenged
rhetoric rebroadcast under the auspices of objective journalism.

“If there are still scholars, journalists and policymakers who remain
skeptical, Univision's extraordinary documentary should erase all
doubt,” declared Hudson's Jaime Daremblum, the US ambassador to Costa
Rica under George W Bush who is on record declaring Iran's dealings with
the likes of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua stem from a “messianic”
desire to attack the United States and its interests. The report,
Daremblum said, “persuasively shows that Iranian activities represent a
major threat to hemispheric security”.

Douglas Farah, a terrorism “expert” who once claimed
that the Muslim Brotherhood had “made tremendous strides in occupying
positions of influence within the Obama administration”, was equally
gushing in his praise for the report, to which he and a host of other
usual suspects on the right contributed. During the panel discussion
following the screening, he explained he was so impressed with the
original Spanish-language report that he lobbied for an English version
to present to Washington's policymakers.

“When I saw the final product, I thought it was important to bring
that to a broader audience,” said Farah. “The Univision audience is
largely the Latin American community, and in Spanish, and it was not as
broadly circulated in Washington policy circles as I felt it should be.
And so I approached Jaime about the possibility of hosting something
here.”

Neither Farah, the Hudson Institute nor Univision responded to
several requests for comment. But then, you don't really need a comment
from a spokesperson to understand what's going on here.

Saban's role

In 2006, Univision was purchased for $1.1bn by a group of investors
led by Saban, who now serves as its chairman. One of the wealthiest men
in the US, Saban is a major donor to the Democratic Party who, according
to a Fortune magazine profile,
regularly “gossips with Rupert Murdoch, vacations with Bill Clinton ...
and confers with former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.”
As journalist Belén Fernández notes,
Saban's political views tend to mirror those of his hawkish
establishment friends. And when it comes to perceived threats to Israel,
he's about as subtle as the reports his media properties produce.

“When I see Ahmadinejad, I see Hitler,” Saban said of the Iranian
president the same year he purchased Univision. “His motivation is also
clear: the return of the Mahdi is a supreme goal ... [and] worth the
liquidation of five and a half million Jews. We cannot allow ourselves
that.”

This past December, meanwhile, Saban hosted a “Friends of the Israel Defence Forces” fundraiser that, according to the Jewish Journal,
was “teeming with Los Angeles' most hawkish, hard-line lovers of
Israel”. And, lest anyone think he separates his personal views from his
businesses, at a 2009 conference in Israel he outlined “three ways to
be influential in American politics,” which according to New Yorkermagazine consist of “mak[ing] donations to political parties, establish[ing] think tanks, and control[ing] media outlets.”

And in “targeting media properties”, the New Yorker noted, "Saban frankly concedes his political agenda, as evidenced by his repeated efforts to purchase the Los Angeles Times."

“I thought it was time that it turn from a pro-Palestinian paper into
a balanced paper,” Saban said when asked to explain his interest in the
paper.

But as the fifth-largest television network in the US, with a rapidly growing audience among 18-49 year olds, Univision reaches a much bigger audience than the Times.
And it provides a much larger platform from which to promote a hawkish
line on Israel's perceived foes, particularly to the under-propagandised
and rapidly growing Hispanic market - a market of roughly 50 million
that one Zionist organization, The Israel Project, recently labelled the
world's “most hostile towards Israel.”

With the network reportedly in talks
with the Walt Disney Company to launch an English-language cable news
channel, Univision's dishonest - and strangely English - documentary on
the “Iranian threat” may just be an example of what's to come. At a
minimum, it suggests yet again that when it comes to corporate news,
objective facts and evidence are less important than who's paying to
keep the lights on.